AMAC EXCLUSIVE
One of the most tragic consequences of the border crisis is the flood of fentanyl and other deadly drugs pouring into American communities. But while fentanyl might be coming into the United States from Mexico, much of the stuff ultimately originates in China – and may be part of an intentional effort by the Chinese Communist Party to destabilize American society.
According to a recent report from the bipartisan House Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP has played a direct role in fueling America’s fentanyl crisis.
Generations of courageous American scholars and researchers have provided evidence that supports the conclusion that the Chinese Communist Party is the primary reason for the proliferation of narcotics in the U.S. and the West. The committee’s final document, which will serve as the primary source of this knowledge for future generations, vindicates their efforts. The report marks a historic event in the fight against drug proliferation.
As the report relays, fentanyl has heavily contributed to the record high number of overdose deaths in the United States – more than 112,000 in 2023 alone. “On average,” the report reads, “fentanyl kills over 200 Americans daily, the equivalent of a packed Boeing 737 crashing every single day. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-45 and a leading cause in the historic drop in American life expectancy.”
Put another way, every 14 months more Americans are dying from fentanyl than the total number of Americans killed in all wars since 1945.
Fentanyl, which can poison someone just by coming into contact with their skin, is also killing toddlers and infants. As one local news outlet in Seattle recently reported, three children under 13 months old were rushed to the hospital over the span of just a few days after accidentally coming into contact with fentanyl. Fentanyl-laced pills, which are often produced to look like candy, are a growing problem for toddlers.
To learn more about how fentanyl and the products used to make fentanyl (called “fentanyl precursors”) make their way from China to Mexico before being smuggled into the U.S., the committee launched a thorough investigation into public PRC websites and PRC government documents. In total, that investigation collected “37,000 unique data points of PRC companies selling narcotics online through web scraping and data analytics, undercover communications with PRC drug trafficking companies, and consultations with experts in the public and private sectors.”
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China], under the leadership of the CCP, is the ultimate geographic source of America’s fentanyl crisis,” the House China committee concludes. Specifically, the CCP “directly subsidizes the manufacturing and export of illicit fentanyl materials and other synthetic narcotics through tax rebates”; “holds ownership interest in several PRC companies tied to drug trafficking”; “fails to prosecute fentanyl and precursor manufacturers”; and “allows the open sale of fentanyl precursors and other illicit materials on the extensively monitored and controlled PRC internet.”
The committee’s investigators found that 26 of 27 known Chinese vendors of fentanyl precursors that they reached out to responded almost immediately, indicating a well-funded and equipped operating network. Overall, subsidies provided by the CCP are estimated to have led to an increase of 10 to 20 times in sales of fentanyl and fentanyl precursors.
The report also makes clear that fentanyl has in effect become a chemical weapon that China is using against the United States. “The global illicit fentanyl trade has enriched the PRC itself, empowered its organized crime assets through lucrative money laundering, and offered PRC elites a means to move a certain amount of their capital abroad, thus diminishing the risk of their dissent,” the report reads. According to one treatise from leading CCP officials cited in the report, Chinese military leaders have discussed how “drug warfare” could be an effective weapon against the United States.
Lt. Col. Quán Chāngpǔ, who was involved in war planning against the United States and its allies under the order of the CCP Central Committee and defected to the West in the early 1990s, told me that the spike in fentanyl deaths in the United States is “all by design.”
“It was already planned in the 1990s,” he said. “The party firmly believes the historical laws of Leninist ideology dictate a need for confrontation that ends with the so-called final phase, that is, a full-scale attack on the capitalist, imperialist world… This war plans include an initial stage, with its objective to weaken U.S. society’s will to defend itself, and the narcotics deluge plays a crucial role.”
Lt. Col. Quán praised the House China committee report as “groundbreaking” for revealing “a part of the CCP’s U.S. strategy.” He emphasized that “every American patriot should read it,” stating that it contains “essential knowledge about China that many supposed experts are not disclosing.”
Another high-ranking CCP defector, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, said the flood of fentanyl is part of an “increased all-front offensive.”
“Your representatives finally say it in official documents: the culprit is the CCP, not an anonymous Chinese gang,” he said.
However, while exposing the CCP’s central role in the American fentanyl crisis is a positive and necessary development, taking steps to combat the threat is another matter entirely.
At the end of its report, the House China committee offers more than a dozen policy solutions to stop the flow of fentanyl into American communities. Noticeably missing, however, are robust measures to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, where most of the fentanyl comes from.
For that, it may take not just a change in policy, but a change in leadership.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
